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Mitt Romney’s campaign and its Republican allies are set to outspend the president’s campaign and allied Democratic groups by more than $18 million on the airwaves just this week, according to data provided by a Democratic source.

The disparity, with Republicans spending $41.7 million and Democrats spending $23.5 million, illustrates a strategic gamble on behalf of the GOP presidential nominee to bury President Barack Obama and burn past him during the closing weeks of the campaign.

“Patience is a virtue,” one Republican source said of the decision to hold resources until the last weeks of the campaign.

The Republican source, who like all others would only discuss ad buying strategy and details on condition of anonymity, put the ad disparity at somewhat smaller than $18 million. The source offered the following data for the money being spent on both national cable and swing state television ads between Oct. 8 and Oct. 14.

The reason that the Democratic breakdown of ad spending numbers is different from the Republican breakdown is owed to the fact that they included radio ad expenditures as well as additional advertisers. For instance, Planned Parenthood is set to spend $1 million on ads this week, while the Republican Jewish Coalition is set to spend $1.2 million. The disparity could grow larger going forward. On Friday evening,the Washington Post reported that Restore our Future was upping the ante even further, booking $14 million of ads in nine battleground states for the last week of October. A request for comment from Priorities USA was not immediately returned.

Combined with Romney’s strong debate performance, the money being spent on the airwaves seems likely to have elevated the Republican candidate’s standing nationally and in the battleground states.